Thank you Speaker Bill O’Brien ... not

Friday

Nov 9, 2012 at 5:28 AMNov 9, 2012 at 5:31 AM

On Tuesday there was good news and bad news.

Included in the latter was that Bill O’Brien, who currently serves as Speaker of the House, was re-elected to that august New Hampshire body. The good news is he will not be re-elected speaker now that the Republicans have lost control of the House.

It is no secret that the editorial board here at Foster’s Daily Democrat holds O’Brien in low esteem. To our way of thinking, the Speaker has abused the trust placed in him by his fellow legislators when they elected him to the leadership post. His efforts to run roughshod over the legislative process contributed significantly to Tuesday’s pendulum swing which saw Democrats able to retaliate by reclaiming the House and shrinking the number of Republicans in the N.H. Senate (13-11 as of this writing). We also believe O’Brien’s behavior contributed to the losses of Republican Congressmen Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta, as well as boosting Maggie Hassan’s victory margin over Republican Ovide Lamontagne.

As reminded by the Nashua Telegraph, it was O’Brien who:

— Tried to block the Obama administration’s expansion of Medicaid by removing the lone Democrat from a key oversight committee.

— Support the end of a 40-year ban on carrying guns on the House floor.

— Endorsing election law reform to keep “out-of-state” students from voting in New Hampshire

— Removed Rep. Lee Quandt, R-Exeter, from House Finance Committee after he opposed the House GOP state budget and Right-to-Work bills.

— Removed Deputy Majority Leader Shawn Jasper, R-Hudson, from the Election Laws Committee after Jasper battled with the chairman over the voter ID bill. O’Brien removed Jasper from two other committees after a February dispute.

In essence, on Tuesday New Hampshire voters got sweet revenge, in part, for being subjected to a state legislature — specifically the House — that too often lost focus on what matters — jobs and the economy.

If there is any doubt about voter backlash beyond that directly experienced here in the Seacoast — and there was plenty — the Concord Monitor is reporting two other significant defeats — Laconia Republicans Rep. Robert Kingsbury and Rep. Harry Accornero. Both made national news this year, according to the Monitor — Kingsbury for proposing the state return to Magna Carta rule and Accornero for insisting President Obama is not a “natural born” American citizen.

Also ousted on Tuesday was House Majority Leader Pete Silva who lost his seat in Nashua. O’Brien had named Silva to the post former Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt resigned for faking a law school internship. Silva will be joined in retirement by Rep. Stephen Stepanek, O’Brien’s chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

As indicated above, when House Republicans meet to consider their leadership choices for the next legislative session they will do so as the minority party — and for that they can largely thank Bill O’Brien.